History · brewing devices

The coffee filter: Melitta Bentz and the 1908 paper filter

The first commercial paper coffee filter came out of a Dresden kitchen in 1908, where Melitta Bentz lined a perforated brass cup with blotting paper from her son's exercise book. This page sets out what the German patent office and Melitta's own records say about that filter, how the round disk became today's cone and filter bag, and how the line runs on to the Chemex and the V60.

Updated 2026-10-26 · sources listed at the end · brand names appear only where the history requires them

Before 1908

The German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) describes the problem Bentz set out to solve: coffee was made by pouring fine grounds into hot water and waiting for them to settle, or by straining through sieves that either clogged or let grounds through, leaving the coffee lukewarm with a bitter aftertaste. Wikipedia adds percolators and cloth or linen bags to the list, and notes that paper itself was not new — it records blotting paper in a tinned metal cone described by Johann Georg Krünitz in 1782 and paper experiments by Elard Römershausen in 1847. Wikipedia calls Bentz's 1908 filter the first commercial paper coffee filter.

The 1908 registration

Bentz did not receive a full patent in 1908 but a Gebrauchsmuster, a German utility model — a registered right for a practical device. The DPMA notes she was among the first women to have an invention personally protected.

Wikipedia's coffee filter article describes the first commercial paper filter as a round disk of 94 mm.

The company's first years

A surviving three-part round filter, "Original Melitta No 1", is held by the Heimatmuseum Altes Rathaus in Loßburg: aluminum with Bakelite handles, 10.5 cm high and 9.5 cm across, dated to 1920. The museum record says the three-part round filter stayed in the range until the 1970s. Bentz died on 29 June 1950.

From round disk to cone and filter bag

The shape most brewers know today — a tapered holder with a slot-shaped bottom and a folded paper bag — arrived in the 1930s.

• 1932, the quick filter: Melitta's timeline describes "the first quick filters" as conical with a flat, round base and outflow holes, with a presser that shaped square paper; the DPMA says flat filter paper was first pressed into shape with an aluminium indenter. Wikipedia dates this Schnell-Filter to 1932 and says Melitta bought the rights to a Göttingen design.
• 1935–1937, the filter bag: Melitta-Werke AG filed DE640946, Filtertüte in Tassenform (filter bag in cup shape), on 25 July 1935; it was published on 15 January 1937.
• 1936–1937, the tapered base: DE652010, Aufbrühfilter (brewing filter), was filed on 7 June 1936 and published on 23 October 1937. The DPMA dates the change to 1936: "the base was oval and tapered" on the porcelain filter from then on; Melitta's timeline puts the slit-shaped bottom and the patented bags in 1937. The DPMA also cites patent specification DE 653796A (1937) for its drawing of the filter.
• After the war: Melitta lists earthenware cones in 1954, the plastic quick filter in 1960, and the founding of Melitta USA in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on 3 June 1963, where filters are made. Wikipedia dates the larger "1×" sizes (1×2, 1×4, 1×6) to 1963 or 1965.
• Paper itself: Melitta introduced unbleached Natural Brown filters in 1989 and chlorine-free, oxygen-whitened paper in 1992. How bleached and unbleached paper compare is covered on the coffee filters page.

Filter-brewing milestones

Only dates published by the makers, the patent record or a museum are listed; Wikipedia is noted where it is the only source.

More on these brewers: Chemex history and recipe, V60 guide, Kalita Wave guide.

Where sources disagree

• The 1908 dates. The DPMA gives 20 June 1908 for the registration and 8 July for the Patent Gazette entry (DPMA's coffee-filter article calls 20 June the application and 8 July the grant). NDB-online says Bentz filed on 11 June, protection was granted on 20 June and the notice appeared on 8 July. Wikipedia's coffee filter article uses 8 July.
• Patent or utility model. The DPMA, NDB-online and the Loßburg museum record call it a utility model (Gebrauchsmuster); Wikipedia, ERIH and Melitta's US timeline say patent.
• Starting capital. 72 Reichspfennig per the DPMA; 73 per Melitta's US timeline.
• The first cup. Brass in the DPMA, NDB-online and ERIH accounts; a perforated tin can in the museum record.
• When the cone came. 1932 in Wikipedia and Melitta's timeline, "the 1930s" in the DPMA and ERIH, with the tapered base the DPMA dates to 1936.
• Her children. The DPMA names two sons, Willy and Horst; DPMA's coffee-filter article calls her "a mother of three", and Wikipedia lists a third child, born in 1911.

From 1908 to today's pour-over

The parts of Bentz's design are still there in a modern dripper: a holder that keeps the grounds off the cup, a single-use paper that traps them, and holes in the base through which the brew drains. The DPMA's coffee-filter article says the paper filter was patented in the 1930s in the form still typical today; the cone is also the shape of the Chemex (1941) and V60 (2004) filters, though each maker sizes its filters differently. The pour-over guide compares those drippers side by side, and the coffee filters page explains what paper holds back compared with metal and cloth.

Brewing history in the lab

This page starts the lab's history section. Other device histories, each sourced on its own page:

• Chemex — Peter Schlumbohm, the 1941 patent and MoMA
• Hario V60 — the 2004 cone and the World Brewers Cup
• Siphon (vacuum) coffee — a history from 1827
• Moka pot — Bialetti's 1933 Moka Express
• Turkish coffee — the 2013 UNESCO listing
• Coffee scales — including the PourX Oura note